City Lights Authors in the News

Lisa Jarnot discussing the use of sound and word association in her poetry. Her book Joie de Vivre will be published by City Lights later this year.

If we are rational and consider objective scientific evidence of environmental collapse including groundwater depletion, topsoil loss, chemical contamination, ocean dead zones, species extinction, bio-diversity reduction and climate disruption, we need to be apocalypticists, argues Robert Jensen.

Robert Jensen discusses the idea of living your life honestly in front of students as key to good teaching.

CIA Director-designate John Brennan stumbled through less-than-challenging questions at his Senate confirmation hearing, struggling to square the circle of his past ties to abuses in the "war on terror" with his future promises to be a force for openness and reform, as ex-CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman notes.

CIA nominee John Brennan was repeatedly questioned about torture at his CIA confirmation hearing, including the use of waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques. He refused to say waterboarding was a form of torture, but said he has come to oppose the technique. Under George W. Bush, Brennan served as deputy executive director of the CIA and director of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. "Remember, he was the cheerleader for some of these onerous policies, particularly renditions and extraordinary renditions. So, for John Brennan today to say he read the Senate committee intelligence report on torture and he learned things he never knew before and that he was shocked with what he learned, this is a case of incredible willful ignorance," says Melvin Goodman, former CIA and State Department analyst.

The release of Robert Duncan in San Francisco announced.

Lamba Literary includes Robert Duncan in San Francisco in their monthly update of new books to read in January. 

Catherine Wagner's Nervous Device listed as a Notable Book of 2012 by American Poet, the publication of the Academy of American Poets.

An interview with Catherine Wagner on The Conversant.

World Literature Today includes A Long Day's Evening in their notable translations list for 2012.

In December 2012, Aron Aji was invited by Two Lines and the Center for the Art of Translation in San Francisco to discuss his latest work, translating from the Turkish Bilge Karasu's A Long Day's Evening. Aji called Karasu's project as an author both an attempt to develop a new Turkish literary language and an attempt to develop a readership for this language. However large a claim this was, by the end of this event Aji had borne it out.

Lew Welch's Ring of Bone made the Chronicle's Best Books of 2012, in the poetry category.

"The luminous poems by the man who left behind a suicide note in 1971 - and has never been seen since - feel as vibrant today as when they first burst from the wellsprings of creativity in his head."

Lew Welch's poem [I saw myself] is featured on Poetry Daily.

An interview with Philip Choy.

Philip P. Choy is interviewed.

Aaron Shurin's "Citizen" is included in the best poetry books of 2012 list on Hyperallergic.

Citizen is noted on this list of best LGBT books with this quote from K.M. Soehnlein (author of Robin and Ruby):
"...Aaron Shurin, in Citizen, deliriously revels in sensual images, sly wisdom and rumbling pauses. Shurin's brilliant book—his eleventh—suggests how a lengthy career allows a poet the room to roam, stretching the limits of what his poems can be."

"The new movie 'Lincoln' explores the last months of Abraham Lincoln's life and sheds light on prominent figures of the time. One lesser-known person is former slave Elizabeth Keckley. She became a close confidante to Mary Todd Lincoln. Host Michel Martin speaks with professor Clarence Lusane about Keckley's contributions to American history."

Watch Clarence Lusane, author of The Black History of the White House, discuss the origins of his recently published work about the contributions which both black men and women have made throughout the White House's history.